


The Slow Death of Winter

by misura



Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: F/F, Magic, Pre-Thor: Ragnarok (2017)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-30
Updated: 2018-12-30
Packaged: 2019-09-30 15:57:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17227001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misura/pseuds/misura
Summary: Hela gets banished. Valkyrie gets caught in the crossfire.





	The Slow Death of Winter

It is an old magic - ancient, even, from well before Hela's time.

Had Odin been less set on conquest, she might in time have received the knowledge of it from Frigga, who would have been taught it by her own mother, and so forth.

As things stand, she can only observe, feel the spell grow stronger and stronger as it feeds on those rightfully hers, those who have died by her hand and ought now be hers forevermore in death.

Life cannot stand against death. All living things die, in the end.

Thus, to chain a goddess of death, what is required is not life, but death. Lots and lots of death. An orgy of killing and slaughter, to fuel a magic meant to preserve and keep safe now twisted to imprison.

Honestly, she didn't think the old bastard still had it in him.

 

Hela hasn't had much dealings with the Valkyrie. They were always Odin's darlings, warrior-women like Hela, but softer, weaker. Useful in their own way, yet hardly important.

Pretty, like butterflies, and about as easy to kill.

Too easy: Hela's pretty sure that if only one or two of them had survived, in time, she might have found a way to use them to break the spell, to weaken the magic of the dead that keeps her here.

As it is, searching the length of the battlefield feels mostly like an excercise in futility. At least the corpses won't rot: like Hela herself, they have been cut off from the rest of the universe - from life and time itself, one might say. Eons could pass, and she will still emerge from this place not a day older.

It would be a nice thought, if only 'eons' wasn't such a damn long time to sit around doing nothing.

She wonders, idly, what will be done with Fenris, if anyone will be kind enough to feed him, water him, ride him into battle. The idea of anyone else on his back makes her want to kill someone.

Distantly, to the left of her, someone moans. It might be nothing, Hela tells herself. It probably is.

Still, just in case, she tries to think happy, non-homicidal thoughts as she makes her way to where the sound seems to be coming from.

 

"Kill me."

Well. Not the most promising conversation opener, given the circumstances. On the other hand, Hela tells herself, people who want to die generally aren't dead yet.

"No," she says, crouching a bit for a better look. There's quite a bit of blood, not all of it her new best friend's, but enough to cause some concern.

"Then I guess I'm going to have to kill you."

"Do try." Goddesses of death know shit all about healing magic, more's the pity, though Hela supposes she can at least try and not stab, punch or kick the woman, and hope that that will suffice. "May I suggest you wait until you can at least walk?"

The Valkyrie spits at her.

Hela rises. She feels her temper slipping, her hands itching to call forth death and destruction.

"Why don't I go and see if I can find some clean water?"

 

The Valkyrie refuses to give Hela her name.

"I suppose I can make something up," Hela says. "Like for a pet." It helps, she's found, to think of the Valkyrie like that, like something she's picked up and rescued and must now take a certain amount of responsibility for. Fenris was her pet, once, before he became her companion, ever faithful and loyal.

If they haven't let him starve to death yet, he's probably been killed.

"Try." The Valkyrie bares her teeth. She's drunk the water Hela brought her, and eaten the food Hela gave her. Hela wishes she'd get up and do something interesting.

"Maybe later." Neither of them really needs food or water. That is to say: they can't die of starvation or thirst or anything other than violence - and possibly not even that.

Possibly, she might cut off the woman's head and still not kill her.

"What do you want, anyway? Why are you still here?"

Possibly not.

"Another time," Hela says, trying to sound kind, like Mother. "Now, rest. Sleep, little spark."

The Valkyrie grimaces, but Hela's found her a clean cloak and a comfortable place to lie, and maybe there's a bit of Mother in her remaining after all, in spite of all of Odin's efforts to make her his alone.

 

Telling time is tricky; it's never morning or evening, neither day nor night.

The magic does seem to allow change, which is a relief. Hela's not sure her patience would be up to dealing with an invalid for longer than a few days.

Dealing with someone who wants to kill her is easier. More familiar, too. It's not quite a battle or a fight, even with Hela holding back as much as she's capable of, but it's a moment's entertainment.

"Kill me," the Valkyrie says - orders, really.

Lying on her back, looking up at Hela: give her a couple of centuries of hard training, and they might have themselves a proper duel. Granted, Hela'd have to fight it with one hand tied behind her back, but so what? She's done worse.

"I can't," Hela says.

"Won't, you mean."

Hela wonders what will happen if she stabs the Valkyrie, just a little. Say, in the shoulder, or the stomach. (Not the stomach, on second thought: stomach wounds always get so messy.)

"Are you hungry? Thirsty? Sleepy?" Their bodies are still capable of sleep, for now. Hela can tell it's only a force of habit though, a luxury rather than a necessity.

"I'm angry," the Valkyrie says.

Angry people, in Hela's experience, don't ask other people to kill them. Not out loud, anyway. They do tend to get themselves killed rather often, but that's through sheer stupidity.

"Oh, good. Something we have in common at last." Hela's not sure that 'angry' is the right word for what she feels. It seems so mild, so ... tame. "Want me to let you up so you can have another go?"

"I'm never going to beat you."

"Don't let it stop you from trying. After all, what else are you going to do?"

"I'm going to find a way to get out of here," the Valkyrie says.

Hela scoffs. A pathetic part of her wants to believe, wants to hope that perhaps this nameless nobody will see or sense something Hela has not.

The part of her that is her father's daughter knows better. One day, if Hela works out the ritual just right, the Valkyrie's death may buy Hela's escape, but that day is a far way off yet.

 

As time goes by, they settle into some sort of routine.

They fight, they trick their bodies into falling asleep, and they bury the dead - or rather: Hela splits the earth, and the Valkyrie speaks a few words, tries to give each of them a death song.

"This is Gwendrin, who saved the lives of three of her sisters when they were ambushed."

"This is Birgit, who avenged her shield sister's death tenfold."

"This is Agalfrid, who cooked better than any of us."

(Hela snorts; the Valkyrie looks at her, sharp and yes, angry, even though that other emotion is still lurking in her eyes, too, the one that makes her keep asking Hela to kill her, to end this.)

Hela wonders if one day, she will stand in this place and say out loud, _"This is a woman who would not tell me her name, who was the last of the Valkyrie. She died as she lived: like a fool."_

 

Boredom does set in, eventually. It takes the edge off the Valkyrie's emotions, at least, but it also makes their fights even more dull and predictable than they already are.

Hela supposes she might offer to teach, to explain rather than to demonstrate. It's not really in her nature, though. Odin has shaped her to be a weapon, not a crutch, and besides, judging by what she's seen thus far, to improve the Valkyrie's fighting would be the work of ages.

Hela wants something new now, not in another couple of centuries.

 

Familiar, all of this: a too brief fight that ends with the Valkyrie's throat at Hela's blade, the Valkyrie's gaze on some point over Hela's shoulder (never on Hela's face, not anymore, as if she already knows everything she might find and read there), the Valkyrie's mouth, shaping the same old words.

 _One small movement,_ Hela thinks, _and you might cut your pretty throat._ All Hela would need to do is hold still, allow it to happen. At this point, she thinks she might.

There's a difference between being ruthless and being cruel, and Hela knows on which side of the divide she stands, and on which side stands Odin, smug and self-satisfied and King, still.

The Valkyrie says nothing, makes no movement.

Hela considers killing her. A waste, arguably, of her best chance to get out of here before dear old Dad either changes his mind or kicks the bucket. Inarguably, also, a mercy. An act of kindness - and what is death, if not kind and merciful?

"Well? Aren't you going to ask me to kill you again?"

"What would be the point?" the Valkyrie asks. "You're never going to do it, are you?"

"I might," Hela says, but she senses old feelings stirring again. This is at least a little bit new, after all, a little bit different from the way this conversation usually goes.

"Liar," says the Valkyrie. Her mouth is the tiniest bit bloody, her left arm bruised.

Hela tries to limit her damage, but holding back gets so very boring and anyway, it's not as if any injuries she inflicts will not eventually heal.

She imagines the taste of it, the taste of the Valkyrie's bloody mouth. Imagines sliding her hands through the Valkyrie's hair. Imagines touching, and being touched in return.

(An unequal contest, still. Even so, it will be something different.)

 

"No," the Valkyrie says, but after, not before.

"Perhaps you should fight a little bit harder tomorrow," Hela says. The concept pleases her, to claim this small thing as her victory prize, her spoil of this not-war between them.

The Valkyrie pretends to have fallen asleep.

Hela runs her hands over once bruised skin and allows herself to think of Asgard.


End file.
